Werewolves in the Mist

Andor and I get up and head to the Inn early. Once we got to the Inn, I got some food and we talked to the others about what we were going to do about the festival. Sasha joined us and was saying sorry for not meeting with us last night. Old Wolf started asking Sasha what she thought about lady Wachter and Sasha didn’t know anything about her.

Danika closes the Inn and we as a group head to where the festival is taking place. We all there waiting and we see children dressed up as flowers appeared and the burgomaster’s wife on a white horse came out. Some guards came out pushing a cart full of burnables. Then the burgomaster came out last on a horse. The burgomaster made a speech and had a torch in his hand to light the cart on fire. After his speech thousands of bats start flying over us and as the bats flew away. The burgomaster went to light the cart on fire, heavy rain appeared out of no where putting the flame out.

Someone in the crowd laughed a little and the burgomaster figured it out that it was a guard and yelled out “Spite! Malicious Mockery! Arrest him!”, another guard went to arrest him and that is when someone else yelled “NOW”. After that about 12 masked people pushed through the crowd and went to attack the guards. The burgomaster yelled “Guards, Protect me!” as he rode off on his horse, leaving his wife behind.

Old Wolf got my attention to realize that Andor and Izmark were headed toward the church. So I start heading that way with Sasha and Old Wolf.

By the time we got the church in our sight, we saw more bats, some zombies and some wolves around the church. As we got closer, we notice Strahd is there. We engage in the fight with the Zombies, bats and wolves, all while moving closer to the church. And our Healer (Old Wolf) slowly joins the fight and trying to heal people.

As the fight is happening, Strahd yells out to Andor giving him a choice of his friends or Irena. The fight continues and we learn that Andor’s friends got turned into Vampires and started attacking Andor. Izmark dies while trying to protect his sister. I managed to get a really good hit on Strahd before he took off. After Strahd left Old Wolf finally got up to the fight and revived Izmark.

The Festival kicks off as a parade of unhappy looking children trudge through the dusty streets, dressed comically as flowers; their faces painted garishly yellow. A rag-tag assemblage of townsfolk beating not quite rhythmically on drums follows. In turn, this group is followed by Lydia, the burgomaster’s wife, on a white horse. She is covered in strands of yellow strings and garlands that trail behind her. Her fragile smile threatens to crack as she waves to the crowd. Cradled in her arm is a large bouquet of wilted flowers.

Behind them labor a group of sorry looking men, hauling and pushing a cart with a massive sphere of laced wood, vines, wicker, and rope. It must be fifteen feet across. The smells of pitch and oil precede it, wafting across the open square.

Finally, surrounded by a ring of guards, the burgomaster himself rides into the center of the square. His face is painted yellow like the faces of the children. He holds aloft a gruesome torch – a wooden sword with one of the old rotten heads from the Wolf’s Head Jamboree impaled on it, enveloped in flames.

Coming to a stop, the Baron shouts with an uncomfortably high-pitched voice, “In our safe mountain town of Vallaki, we reject the Dark Prince. By the light of the blazing sun, ALL….WILL….BE….WELL!!”

As the burgomaster wheels his steed to face the wooden sphere with a haughty grin on his yellow face, a single chirping screech is heard from above. Only a few Vallakians seem to notice it at first, but it is followed by a rising chorus of dozens, then hundreds of clicking, chittering screeches and the sound of leathery wings on the air as a wave of thousands of bats pours across the sky, casting the town square into a surreal twilight darkness. The large bats swoop across the sky, low, but not dipping below the rooflines of the sad buildings of the town.

There are gasps and shouts amongst the crowd. The people seem rooted in place. The burgomaster, face illuminated by the blazing torch in the sudden dark, prods his horse towards the sun sphere and defiantly leans down to thrust the flame against the wooden structure. However, as the bats pass, flying out of sight, the sound of their wings is replaced by the sound of rain – heavy rain chasing the bats’ progress from east to west, blanketing Vallaki in a torrential downpour. Before he can light the pitch-soaked sphere, the rain extinguishes the burgomaster’s torch.

A singular laugh erupts from the crowd, drawing the burgomaster’s fiery gaze as well as gasps from the townsfolk. All eyes turn to look at the source of the laughter, one of the guards in the Vallaki militia. The guardsmen flanking him are aghast at his ill-timed outburst.

Baron Vallakovich cries out, “SPITE! MALICIOUSMOCKERY! ARRESTHIM!”
After a second’s pause, the other guardsmen turn and seize the man who laughed.

Immediately, another shout bursts from somewhere in the crowd, “Now!” At that signal, about a dozen masked individuals push through the crowd and set upon the town guard. The chaos is sudden and complete. In addition to the melee between the guards and their assailants, the entire assembled town seems to panic and people are rushing in every direction to escape the fracas.
The burgomaster, terror in his eyes, screams out, “Guards! Protect me!!” and whirls his horse to flee the scene. Clearly not caring about who might be trampled in the process, the burgomaster spurs his horse away from the square, escorted by eight guards. You notice that he left his wife behind. Fr. Petrovich reaches his sister and pulls her away from the brawl. They rush away from the square heading west through town.

Ismark rushes through the confused throng of townsfolk and rushes up to Andor. He clearly has a panicked look in his eyes. He shouts, “Ireena! At the church. Please help me!” He is imploring you to come with him.

I was able to see the lady Wachter’s daughter tonight. She was mad. Not mad as I am, but truly mad. She had no sense of herself any longer. She hissed and spat at me like a cat as I approached her. I was able to use the same ability that caused me to become fishlike to give myself claws and fangs. We spoke but it was clear that she had no cognizance of any moment but the present. She couldn’t tell me of her past love of the burgomasters’ son Victor. I hoped perhaps his experiments in magic had addled her brain and I would be able to free her.

I had a moment of indecision when the lady told me that her daughter had lept from the roof, thinking she could land as lightly as any other feline would. She broke her leg proving that she was a danger to herself if left unattended.

I will help her become burgomaster of this town if it gives her to manpower to care for her daughter without leaving her locked in her room. Whatever it takes so the child may have at least the semblance of freedom.

After taking a few minutes to collect ourselves in the Inn after my previous log, we were invited to Lady Wachter’s house for dinner. She didn’t seem like a bad person, but not like a good person either. She had heard that we had slain Izek, and wanted us to help her overthrow the Burgormaster at tomorrow’s festival. Although the current Burgormaster doesn’t seem to be doing a very fine job, I don’t feel the need to become involved in the politics of such a strange town. The fellow adventurers that had been accompanying me these last few days seem to be more interested in helping. I am only here waiting for Ergan and Martess to find me, and then I must continue to find a way out of this crazy land. There is a tower NW of this town that Ricktavio has been staying at, that seems like the next logical step once I find my friends.

Night of Day 11

Day 11 night

Lady Wachter’s man servant came to the Inn and invited us to dinner at the Wachter’s house.

We as a group walked over to the house and got invited into the house and escorted to the dinning area, the maids took our “jackets” and then offered some appetizers for us to eat while waiting for the dinner to be served. While waiting for the dinner to be served there was some small talk going on. I just sat back listening to it all, not really adding much to the conversations. Ven brought up Stella, like we knew she would, and asked where she was. Lady Wachter went to check on when the dinner was going to be ready.

We found out that we were invited over for dinner because lady Wachter found out who killed Izek and wants our help with something else. She wants us as a group to take down the burgomaster so she can take over the town.

Dinner was served and it looked amazing, well as good as it could be. But Thad being the weird person that he is, had to refuse the nice dinner that was prepared for us and ask if there was any rotten food that he could eat. Lady Wachter looked at Thad with a weird expression. The maids came back with some half rotten food that looked like they had already threw in the trash and they were rubbing off the trash. Most of us were eating and talking about what we thought about taking down the burgomaster. Before we come to an agreement, Ven wants to talk to Stella and check on her well being because of the rumors we have heard. Andor wants to have a good reason to change who is in charge of the town.

Half way through the dinner Thad starts looking around at the ceiling like a crazy person.

End of dinner, and we still hadn’t decided on what we were going to do. We decided to walk by the burgomaster’s house on the way to the Inn. We noticed that there was three guards out front instead of the one like before. We continued walking to the Inn, once we got there, we sat down at a table, got some wine and we started talking about what we were going to do. Ven got up to go to the outhouse, and then Thad left 10 minutes later to head to bed.

Andor made the comment that he is going to go back to the church and pray about everything we learned tonight. I decided its was probably a good idea to head back and go back to the church and go to bed myself, so I joined Andor on the walk back to the church. We walked by the burgomaster’s house, once more, and there was still three guards out front.

We made it to the church and the pastor asked what has been going on and I decided NOW was the prefect time to go to bed (or make people believe I’m asleep), while Andor explains what has been going on and what lady Wachter wanted to see us for. We learned that the pastor’s sister is the burgomaster’s wife and if are in danger the pastor is going to warn them,

Drowning is not so pitiful
As the attempt to rise
Three times, ’tis said, a sinking man
Comes up to face the skies,
And then declines forever
To that abhorred abode,
Where hope and he part company —
For he is grasped of Tyr

We found Bluto on the lake attempting to drown a small girl. My fellows attempted to row out to get her but I knew they wouldn’t make it in time. It told me I could. I didn’t know how it could be possible but I trusted It and jumped in the lake. As I swam towards the girl I was running out of breath but It told me to keep going. I felt a change in my body and I noticed that my need to surface for air was gone and I was moving through the water as rapidly as any fish. I’m sure my appearance would have startled the girl had she been conscious.

After returning her to her camp I managed to get her father out of earshot of the rest of the Vistani. I asked him about the rumor that the Vistani are able to travel freely between worlds. He told me they could travel with aid of a potion that Strahd keeps very close to hand. There are few of these potions in the world and they are dear to whoever has them. Hopefully this wizard in his tower can lead us to Strahd. If we could get some of these potions perhaps we can return to our own land.

Day 10 & 11

Day 10

We as a group stayed in the church with everyone for the night and then we would figure out what our next plan was. Next morning we learned about some bones that were missing that made the church a safe place form Strahd.

We went and hunted down the bones from the coffin-maker’s house and learned that there was a nest of vampires on the second story part of the house. After retrieving the bones back we went and turned in the coffin maker to the burgomaster for housing vampires.

After returning the bones to the church, we went to the Inn and met Danica and Urwin. Some guards showed up to escort us to the burgomaster’s house to retrieve a personal invite to the festival coming up.

After leaving the burgomaster’s house we decided to go to the lake to find the town drunk and ask him some questions why he went fishing everyday when the lake didn’t have any fish in it. But when we got there we found him dumping a sack in the lake that looked like something alive was in it. We got in a boat and rowed out to the place where he dumped the sack and got the sack out of the water to learn that there was a little girl in the sack. We confronted Bluto (town drunk) why he was throwing the girl in the lake and he answered that he had to make a sacrifice to be able to get some fish. We decided as a group that Bluto needed to be turned in for trying to kill the girl so we went to turn in Bluto and then we went to take the girl back to her camp.

We went back to the in and met with the wolf hunters and shared our encounters with the wolves we ran into and also met the Wachter brothers.

Andor and I went back to the church to call it a day while the rest of the group stayed at the Inn.

Day 11

Andor, Adrien, and I went on a walk around the town, I mainly went to see if I could hear MaKenzie’s voice again and try to find her. We went to the stockyards and saw Rictavio’s wagon and heard a loud animal noise coming from inside it. Then we met Rictavio himself and I got a weird feeling from him that he is hiding something from us.

On our way back to the Inn to meet up with the others, we stopped by and watched the Blinsky puppet show and checked out the store which there was a strange women (Sasha) that bought a strange toy.

Back at the Inn we met with Ismark to talk about what has been happening in the town since we have arrived. Rictavio and Danica were there waiting to talk to us. We had a conversation about the readings we got as a group from the Vallaki camp, and what it meant. Then as we were talking we got a message from Ven that there were a lot of guards outside. We helped Rictavio escape the town, defeating the guards and big ugly Izek in the process. The strange woman from the toy store showed up and helped us with the fight against the guards. After Rictavio is out of the gates, we went back to the Inn to celebrate and have some dinner. While eating, we got a invitation to go have dinner with the Lady Wachter.

It has been quite an eventful couple of days. This Vallaki place seemed more normal than Barovia village, but after a couple of days I am not convinced. We heard many rumors the first night at the church and have been following most of those leads. We rescued a Vistani girl and returned her to her father, who had seen Ergan and Martess. They sent them back to Barovia village, and after much discussion, they agreed to send word to them of my location in Vallaki. We finally met this Rictavio, and I wasn’t a huge fan, he seemed to be hiding something. It turns out he is part of a secret gang that is going to bring down Strahd. We helped hm escape town and took out big ugly Izek, the burgomaster’s main bodyguard. I do not feel right about this burgomaster, he forces everyone to participate in festivals, as he feels happiness is a way to ward off Strahd….

Can this be true?

Thad thinks back to the last few days. What is happening? Can it be true? Am I a Sorcerer?

I know the dreams are different, like nothing that I have ever had before. The strands that I see and I seem to pluck them in a certain way, then my dream changes.

It seems that the first time anything happened was when we were at the small cemetery and we saw this corpse hanging from a gallows. Ven had mentioned she might use Mage Hand, as I watch a ghostly hand appeared and touched the body. Several days later Ven mentioned that she hadn’t cast the spell.

The second time, was when the whole group was walking down the street. I was so hungry I almost couldn’t stand it. I happened to glance down one of the allies and saw a garbage pile. All of a sudden the ghostly hand appeared, picked up a couple of spoiled lettuce. It then carried it to me. I thanked Ven but she denied casting the spell. She asked if I had cast it and of course I said no, I’m not a caster.

Neither of those times had I consciously cast the spell.

Finally we were sitting in the inn and I began to think that maybe I could cast the spell. I concentrated on creating the hand at a nearby empty table. I almost lost it when it appeared just where I tried to make it. I repeated the spell several times feeling more confident with each casting.

Ven noticed what I was doing and said something. I don’t really know what she had said as I was engrossed in practice. It might have been “You are a sorcerer”. It could have been something else, I don’t know.

I think is was the next day, several of us were on out way back to the inn from a visit to the stockyard to check out the brightly colored wagon, when we saw a large group of the city guard near the front door of the inn. It looked like they were ready for a fight. We snuck around and entered the back door.

Inside the remainder of our group were sitting at a table with the pointy eared traveler Rictavio. We told them about the guards and it was suggested that we leave at once by way of the rear entrance. It seems that the guard was after Rictavio. He got his horse from the inn’s stable and we proceeded to the stockyard so he could hitch up his wagon and leave town.

Just after we entered the stockyard, we saw several of the city guard and their claw armed boss, Izek Strazni. He said something to the effect that we were all under arrest because we were associating with Rictavio,

Needless to say a fight ensued. As we were fighting I decided to try and pluck a different set of strands. I pointed my finger and “Wow!” some kind of ray blasted out and hit a guard. He didn’t seem to like it. I did it one more time before I waded into the fight using my rapier.

We managed to kill them all and get out of the stockyard unseen, or so we thought. That night at the inn as we were having dinner, some one (Ernst Larnak) came to our table and said that he had seen what had happened. He then went on to invite us all to have dinner with Fiona Watcher.